Your Right to Know

Wardens in most of Ohio’s 26 prisons
received raises of up to 23 percent on Jan. 1 under a reorganization plan that raised the bar on
their duties.

The pay hikes will cost taxpayers an extra $248,000 a year.

Wardens will be paid $42.40 an hour, or $88,192 a year, under prisons Director Gary C. Mohr’s
plan. Wardens now earn various rates, from less than $35 an hour to more than $44 an hour. Those
who are already paid more than the new hourly rate will not receive raises.

The employees that wardens supervise will be getting no base-pay increases for the next three
years, under a contract extension approved recently by the Kasich administration and the Ohio Civil
Service Employees Association, the union representing the majority of prison employees.

However, unionized employees qualify for “step” pay and longevity increases based on advancement
and time on the job. Wardens are not eligible for those benefits.

Mohr said in an interview that the raises are in line with reshaped duties and responsibilities
as state prisons are reformed into a three-tier system aimed at reducing inmate violence and
recidivism, the rate at which offenders return to prison.

“It’s a whole different position,” Mohr said. “Leadership is everything. If we’re really going
to make reform happen, it’s going to take place individually at all these prisons. We can’t have
people waiting for direction from this building.”

Mohr called the wardens the new “CEOs” of prisons.

Under their revised duties, wardens will be responsible for not only running the institutions,
but also their individual recidivism rate, Mohr said.

Many wardens had not had pay raises since 2008.

Union officials responded negatively to the news.

“This is kind of a double slap in the face,” said Tim Shafer, OCSEA operations director and a
former corrections officer. “Our people are not getting any raises.” He added that many employees
were laid off Jan. 1 by the sale of a state prison to a private operator.

“The warden’s job has not evolved that much,” Shafer said. “They may have come up with new names
for different things that they’ve been in charge of for decades.”

He said the union will “look at all our contractual rights and other options and weigh them to
protect our membership.”